


Think of Me Always

by walkalittleline



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, so really it’s just Crowley pining a lot, this was gonna be one of those five times fics but I meandered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 10:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19207447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkalittleline/pseuds/walkalittleline
Summary: There are many times Crowley comes a little too close to saying—or doing—something about how he feels. Plenty of times he finds himself dangerously close to getting too close to Aziraphale, stepping into his personal space and waiting to see how he reacts before getting even closer, so close there's not enough space between them even for God—that damned ineffable bastard—to interfere.





	Think of Me Always

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy on repeat writing this which probably explains a lot.  
> -  
> Come talk Good Omens on twitter w/ me @ walkalittleline

There are many times Crowley comes a little too close to saying—or doing—something about how he feels. Plenty of times he finds himself dangerously close to getting _too_ close to Aziraphale, stepping into his personal space and waiting to see how he reacts before getting even closer, so close there's not enough space between them even for God—that damned _ineffable_ bastard—to interfere. There are a few times in particular, though, that he can feel the words on the end of his tongue, feel his hands _itch_ with the need to touch, to see what Aziraphale's skin feels like under his fingers.

He imagines it must be soft, hates himself just a little for imagining it at all, but he so badly wants to find out for himself, has for so long he thinks it might be bordering on the edge of pathetic. It’s always there, ticking dangerously in the back of his head, rising close to the surface like water, threatening to spill over and out of him before he can contain it.

It’s been that way since Eden. Since he’d watched Aziraphale—he hadn’t even learned his name yet at the time—bumble his way through explaining giving up the sword, looking so endearingly flustered that it was probably inevitable for Crowley to be enamored with him. And then Aziraphale has shielded him from the rain when he’d shuffled closer, and he’d been so tempted then to see what would happen if he’d crowded his side, perhaps let his breath ghost along Aziraphale’s jaw, tease him just enough to get that ruffled look from him again.

It hadn’t been anything beyond a detached sort of fascination at the time, a vague interest in this angel that was so very unlike the ones Crowley remembered from his time in Heaven. Still a bit stuffy and straight-laced, but not treating Crowley like he was something scraped from the underside of a rock. Really, Crowley should have known at that moment that he was bound to fall in a completely different sense of the word than he'd already done. He couldn't have imagined at the time, however, that it would lead to six thousand years of it.

It’s not until much later that he nearly says something again. He and Aziraphale bump into each other occasionally, trade favors despite Aziraphale’s continued insistence that they shouldn’t, that they’re not even friends. Crowley can feel his affection for him growing slowly as the years tick by, the thoughts of him becoming more, aggravatingly so, frequent with each passing century.

It’s Rome when he realizes he’s in love with him, when he’s lush with wine and oysters and that shy, reluctant smile Aziraphale wears when they’re enjoying themselves but he refuses to admit it. It doesn’t hit him suddenly like he imagined it would. He thinks it’s been creeping up on him for so long that it just drifts almost lazily into his brain mid-conversation, like a flame flickering to life from hot coals, the warmth ever present underneath and finally bubbling to the surface and passing across the forefront of his mind.

At the time, he’d felt so indulged that he hadn’t made much of the epiphany beyond perhaps smiling a little wider and letting his gaze linger as he let the alcohol settle in his belly and his new-found feelings unfurl in his blood. It wasn’t until the next morning that the panic had set in. In _love_. With an _angel._ What was he even supposed to do with this revelation? For one thing, if anyone ever found out, he’d be laughed out of Hell, or worse, forced to _stay_ there. The very thought made him shudder not only for the loss of all the earthly things he’d grown so fond of, but for the loss of his connection to Aziraphale.

He wasn’t sure which was worse, the fact of knowing that this thing he’d so solidly put a name to now was bound to go unrequited—Aziraphale still vehemently insisted he loathed Crowley—or the fact that it existed in the first place. The thought of it left him with a painful, hollow ache somewhere around his heart that was entirely unfamiliar to him. He’d never have imagined he’d even be capable of feeling this way in the first place, though he supposed it was due to the fact that he’d once been an angel himself so long ago. Regardless, it was not a happy discovery learning that he was still able to experience this longing that made him want to lie about languishing and feeling sorry for himself when Aziraphale left Rome the next day without so much as a goodbye.

It takes him awhile to fully accept that he is truly in love with Aziraphale. He tries to pretend it was just a combination of wine and conversation that left him imagining things that weren’t there. When he next sees Aziraphale a few years later—the two of them happening upon each other as they so often do, this time in China where Aziraphale has been sent to try and thwart a revolt Crowley is there to encourage—the swell in his chest at the sight of him makes it perfectly clear that he wasn’t imagining things after all.

It’s misery, absolute and wretched, and he _abhors_ it. He spends days and weeks and months and _years_ trying not to think about it but always coming back to his mind wandering to their most recent meeting, feeling himself smile in spite of everything like a lovelorn fool. He hates that he knows he’d be at Aziraphale’s beck and call if he ever needed him. The assumption is correct, he comes to learn in France.

Aziraphale has foolishly managed to get himself sentenced to execution purely at the fault of his own indulgent—and so very unangelic—nature and Crowley, enamored as he is, can’t help but show up at just the right time—he does still love his theatrics—to rescue him. The rush of relief in Aziraphale’s voice when he says his name is enough to make the trip worth it, though it’s not until after they’ve left and Aziraphale has led him on a leisurely stroll down _Rue Saint-Antoine_ to a tiny café along the banks of the Seine, that he almost lets his tongue slip. They dine on delicately folded crêpes with lemon and sugar and dolloped with fresh ricotta, sipping strong, hot coffee—Crowley found he quite enjoyed the drink, though Aziraphale often complained it was too bitter for his tastes—while Aziraphale reluctantly thanks Crowley for his help in avoiding “nasty amounts of paperwork” and Crowley waves him off.

He would, he knows, do anything Aziraphale asked him to do. It’s the third time he feels that need to touch him rise so close to the surface he can actually feel his fingers twitch where his hand is lying on the table a few centimeters from Aziraphale’s, so near they’re practically touching already. It would be so simple to extend his fingers, brush the tips of them across Aziraphale’s knuckles, look across the table and ask.

 _You know, don’t you?_ he wants to say. _Do you know I’m in love with you? It’s been so long, you must._

But Aziraphale makes no indication of knowing, chattering excitedly about his plans for his bookshop. Even after they watch the sun set over the river and Crowley thinks he must be so sated with love he must glow with it, Aziraphale still seems oblivious to it. And then he’s gone again.

He buys Aziraphale chocolates from his favorite spot for the grand opening of his bookshop, wondering if maybe after some good wine and chocolate and conversation he might work up the courage to say something. Or _do_ something. He’s been thinking more lately about what it might be light to kiss Aziraphale. He’s spent much more time than he cares to admit to himself absorbed in thoughts of Aziraphale’s lips, what they might feel like against his own, soft and warm and sweet. He wants to trace his fingers across his lips, learn the shape of them, the _taste_ of them. It’s something he’s never been all that interested in before, never really seen the appeal in those particular human desires, but that’s been weighing on his mind more often when it drifts to Aziraphale. He’s just curious, really. Five thousand and some years with humans was bound to have some influence.

His careful hope is dashed when that _idiot_ Gabriel shows up and nearly takes Aziraphale away from him. Crowley stops if, of course he does, but he loses his nerve and doesn’t even end up going to the grand opening at all out of fear that Aziraphale will see it written all over his face.

And then, the worst century of Crowley’s life—maybe second worse after the 1400s, it’s a tossup, really—happens when Aziraphale storms away from him, resolutely denying his request for holy water. Crowley snaps at him, can’t help himself after burying his feelings for over a millennia. Later, he thinks he should be touched by Aziraphale not wanting him to have it, knowing what it will do to him, that he would show concern for him at all when he still firmly insists they mean nothing to each other.

He spends much of the next eighty or so years sleeping. Because calling it moping is admitting to himself that just how affected he is by not talking to Aziraphale for so long, by _fighting_ for so long when they’ve barely had more than the odd spat after nearly six thousand years of time spent together. Even when they didn’t see each other for years there was still an unspoken amicability between them, never this cold bitterness that makes Crowley want to waste away in bed until there’s nothing left of him but the pure maudlin grief that’s consumed him so entirely.

He tries distracting himself and does fairly well for a time until he learns Aziraphale is getting himself in another mess as he so often does. Crowley suffers through going into a church to get him out of it this time, makes sure to save the books Aziraphale so dearly loves, and when Aziraphale takes him up on the offer for a lift back, he’s surprised to find he accepts.

They’re silent at first, not as strained as it might have been before the events in the church, but still with the underlying air of tension that makes Crowley want to scowl and fidget in his seat.

“The car is new,” Aziraphale says eventually, running his fingers lightly over the dash of the Bentley.

“Got it _brand_ new,” Crowley responds, proudly patting the steering wheel. “Still hasn’t got a scratch on it.”

“It is a bit dangerous, isn’t it,” Aziraphald states, brow furrowed as Crowley weaves expertly through traffic.

“Better than horses, though,” Crowley retorts, grinning at the grimace this earns him.

“True,” Aziraphale mumbles. He purses his lips, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling slowly. “Thank you, by the way. For… that.”

“Just a little redirection, is all,” Crowley replies with a shrug.

“I meant the books,” Aziraphale says softly. Crowley can see him looking at him in his peripheral. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Oh, shut up,” Crowley says even as warmth blooms in his chest. “And, you know, I can’t keep coming to your rescue every time you get yourself in a bind, angel.”

“Well, regardless,” Aziraphale says, gripping the satchel in his lap and smiling. “I appreciate it. They’re all very rare, you know.”

“I don’t,” Crowley mutters.

“How did you come up with the name?” Aziraphale says curiously. “ _Anthony._ Any particular inspiration for it? Shakespeare, possibly? You know, there was a St. Anthony. Patron saint of lost thing, I believe.” He pauses. “If I remember correctly, the Latin meaning of the name is ‘priceless one’.”

Crowley forces his features into impassivity when he feels a smile threatening to turn up his lips.

“Just liked the name, is all,” he replies, “No special meaning behind it, really.”

“Well,” Aziraphale begins with a small sigh as they pull up to the corner outside his bookshop. “Like I said, I’ll get used to it, I suppose.”

They sit in silence for a few seconds and Crowley can practically hear Aziraphale’s brain working.

“I take it you haven’t given up your foolish gambit, then?” he says brusquely, eyes fixed straight ahead and fingers clasped around the handle of the bag.

Crowley sighs, irritated but not really surprised.

“I haven’t,” he replies shortly.

Aziraphale makes a small, resigned noise and pushes the car door open, setting one foot on the street before turning back to Crowley, who turns to face him. His expression is downcast, almost pleading, and Crowley tightens his fingers around the steering wheel to keep from reaching out to him.

 _I wouldn’t leave you,_ he thinks, _I wouldn’t unless I had no other choice, don’t you understand that?_

“I wish you would,” Aziraphale says gently. He offers Crowley a stiff smile before stepping out of the car and shutting the door behind him.

Crowley watches him stride around the front and into the bookshop, staring at the door long after it’s closed and the light inside dimmed before pulling away from the corner to drive home.

It’s almost thirty years later that Crowley finds himself sitting slumped in a pub, several drinks into what he knows will be a very long night of sulking and replaying the conversation with Aziraphale over in his head until he falls asleep or passes out, whichever comes first.

“Too fast for him,” he slurs under his breath, chin propped on his hand as he turns his glass absently with the other. “What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”

“Rough night?”

He glances at the man settling onto the stool beside him, young with dark hair and eyes. Crowley grumbles in response and turns back to his drink, draining it and tapping the bar for another.

“Bad breakup?” the young man says, setting his own beer down and peering at Crowley sympathetically.

Crowley snorts. “Can’t break up if you were never together, can you?” he mumbles. The bartender tops off his drink and he quickly drains half of it.

He sets his glass down and turns to look at the man, swaying in his seat a little.

“Said I went too fast for him,” he says, tongue thick and clumsy with the alcohol. “ _Too fast?_  It’s been… well, it’s been…” he trails off, squinting as he tries to do the math in his head. “Well, it’s practically been forever, hasn’t it? Since Rome, anyway.”

The man hums, nodding in understanding. “That where you met?”

“What? Oh, no, we met ages and ages before that.” Crowley sighs and rubs tiredly at his eyes. They burn more than he wants to admit. “‘S’just when… I dunno. When I _knew_ , I guess.” He sighs morosely and lets his forehead rest on the bar top with a quiet _thunk_.

“He said we’d go for a picnic,” he bemoans, fully aware that he’s whining now, “ _dine at the Ritz_ , he said, I mean—“ he straightens up, giving the man a beseeching look, “—what the hell’s that supposed to mean? I told him I’d take him anywhere he wanted to go and he said no.” He slumps in his seat again, pillowing his head on his folded arms.“I’d always take him anywhere.” He shifts his position so his sunglasses aren’t digging into his skin so sharply. “He doesn’t even like my car, though.” He knows he’s pouting but he’s too drunk to care. Not even getting the holy water eases the sting of what feels so strongly like rejection.

The man chuckles and pats him on the shoulder in a comforting gesture. “What’s he like?”

“Stuffy,” Crowley replies honestly, though he smiles at the thought of Aziraphale. “He’s an angel though so I suppose that’s all part of it. Bit old-fashioned… likes his books.” He sighs heavily, blinking his drooping eyelids and thinking he might feel better after a long nap.

He ends up spending the better part of an hour getting very drunk and rhapsodizing over Aziraphale to a stranger. The young man listens mostly in silence, smiling faintly as he does. He introduces himself as Freddie when Crowley asks his name as he stands to leave, his singular beer long since emptied. He tells Crowley things will work out, claps him on the shoulder, and leaves.

When Crowley hears the song on the radio ten years later, it takes him until almost the end of it for what he’s hearing to sink in. He nearly gets rear-ended when he slams the brakes on the Bentley, eyes wide and disbelieving as all the color drains from his face. He waves his hand to rewind the track to the beginning, ignoring the honking of the cars behind him, knuckles white on the steering wheel with how hard he’s gripping it.

A few passersby turn in alarm at the emphatic, “ _FUCK,_ ” audible even through the rolled up windows of the Bentley followed by the squeal of tires as Crowley peels out, torn somewhere between fury and blind panic. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel as he swerves sharply through traffic, thanking someone—not God, but _someone—_ that Aziraphale would never electively listen to Queen. And he, Crowley, would certainly never laze sullenly around his flat listening to the song when he’s feeling particularly jilted. Surely not.

Preventing the apocalypse affords him plenty of opportunities to say something. And he does. Well, not in so many words maybe, but he asks, _begs_ Aziraphale to leave with him. And Aziraphale turns him down. Twice. And it hurts more than he expected it to, like something sharp and gnarled is digging in between his ribs to get to his heart.

When he thinks he’s lost Aziraphale, though, lost his last chance to try and convince him to leave with him before the Earth burns away completely, it’s a pain like nothing he’s ever felt before. Worse than the rejection, worse than thousands of years of _wanting_ and not having, knowing he’ll never see him again. It feels like someone has carved part of him away, like he’ll never really be _whole_ again. There’s no point in leaving Earth without him. No point in _anything_ without him, really. So he drinks and drinks until he thinks at first he’s hallucinating him when he reappears.  

His brain is too sluggish to fully process the relief that’s not really relief. Because Aziraphale still has no body so how’s he supposed to leave with him? But Aziraphale has a plan and Crowley knows he can’t say no to him, has never really been able to. Crowley _stops time_ at the prospect of never speaking to him again. He is so thoroughly, wholly in love with him that he will always be there when Aziraphale calls for him, no matter the reason.

It all ends—or doesn’t end, rather—and it feels strange to him, the thought of returning to the way things have been before. They’ve been barreling so quickly towards something only to stop abruptly short that he thinks something else must give. It’s him, it turns out, that gives.

He’s not sure what makes him do it, if he thought about it long enough he’d probably blame the rollercoaster of emotions he’s felt the last few days, the way he thought he’d lost Aziraphale so many times, but when Aziraphale moves to take the seat next to him on the bus, Crowley takes his hand in his own almost automatically, clasping his fingers firmly in his own and letting their hands rest on his thigh.

Aziraphale glances at him perplexedly as he sits but Crowley keeps his eyes resolutely forward.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says lightly under his breath, “might I ask, what are you doing?”

“Holding your hand,” Crowley responds gruffly.

Aziraphale clears his throat and fidgets in his seat. Crowley sees him look around the cabin of the bus but no one else is bothered with them.

“Why?”

“Because I’m in fucking love with you and I want to,” Crowley says a little more sharply than he means to.

He hears Aziraphale inhale a quick breath at this and he finally works up the nerve to look at him. His eyes are wide, bewildered.

“What?” he breathes.

“I am in love with you,” Crowley says slowly, deliberately. He takes off his glasses so he can see him more clearly in the dim light of the bus. “I have _been_ in love with you for almost two thousand years, angel, and we just stopped the damn apocalypse from happening so, yeah, I’m gonna hold your hand and when we get to my place, if it’s alright with you, I might kiss you, too.”

He turns to face forward again, tightening his hold on Aziraphale’s fingers as he does.

“Oh,” Aziraphale says softly after a long stretch of silence during which Crowley carefully schools his expression into one of indifference. “Well. Yes… yes, I… I think that would be alright.”

“Yeah?” Crowley says, looking over at him as Aziraphale faces forward. He’s not blushing but Crowley can see the discomfit in the stiffness of his posture, the way his lips are pursed as his eyes dart needlessly around the bus.

He sighs and turns to Crowley again, expression verging on apologetic.

“You think I didn’t know, Crowley?” he says matter of factly, “You’re not exactly subtle, you know. _Alpha Centauri_ , _really_.” He huffs and faces forward again. “Just wasn’t expecting you to actually _say_ anything about it.”

“Wha—you knew?”

“Well, _yes_ ,” Aziraphale says, disbelieving. “You were fairly obvious, dear boy.”

“So what, you just… just _ignored_ it?” Crowley says incredulously. “Do that mean… you don’t feel the same?”

“Oh, of course I do,” Aziraphale says, exasperated, flashing him a frown. “But you know it’s not—it wasn’t… it wasn’t _right_ , Crowley.”

“But it’s right now, is it?” Crowley replies, starting to feel faintly irritated. How long had Aziraphale felt the same about him? How many years, _decades_ even had they wasted because of some stupid perceived notion that they had to be at odds with each other?

“Well things are different now, aren’t they?” Aziraphale says curtly. “It’s like you said. We’re on our own side. I can’t imagine they’re very pleased with me now anyway.” He grimaces. “Suppose that’s something we’ll have to deal with eventually.”

“Hang on,” Crowley says, still caught up on the fact that Aziraphale has returned his feelings for some length of time. “How long?”

“How long what?” Aziraphale replies, looking distracted.

“How long have you… you know,” he waves his hand vaguely between them.

“Been in love with you?”

“Mm.”

Aziraphale frowns thoughtfully. “Oh… I think it was 1940 or so? That time in the church with the Nazis.” He makes a pained sort of noise. “I suppose all those books have finally been destroyed now.”

“1941,” Crowley corrects weakly. “And you knew the whole time that I…”

“Oh! No,” Aziraphale says, shaking his head, “no, that was… a bit later I realized. When I gave you the holy water.”

“But that’s still—that was _ages_ ago,” Crowley says.

“It was not _ages_ ,” Aziraphale says with a slight roll of his eyes. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“ _Dramatic?!_ ” Crowley echoes loudly. He ignores Aziraphale’s stern look. “I have been in love with you for two thousand years and you call me dramatic because you didn’t say anything when you knew we felt the same way? Do you know how miserable I was?”

Aziraphale sighs, expression turning guilty. “I’m sorry,” he says gentler, “I wasn’t doing it to make you suffer, you know that. I just… I didn’t believe there was any way it would work. I didn’t want to put us both in danger, Crowley.”

Crowley clicks his tongue doubtfully.

“Yeah, well, what’s the saying?” Crowley says, slouching in his seat moodily. “Better to have loved and lost and all that.”

“I didn’t know you knew Tennyson,” Aziraphale says, sounding mildly impressed, maybe a little touched.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, apparently,” Crowley retorts. His eyes are fixed out the window now but he can see Aziraphale reflected in the glass, smiling watching him. “Starting with the fact that I’d have faced every demon Hell has and every angel Heaven has for you.”

He sees Aziraphale’s expression soften to something tender and regretful.

“You are being a _bit_ dramatic again,” he says even as he adjusts their hands so their fingers are intertwined.

Crowley scowls at his reflection but squeezes his hand all the same. He feels the agitation melt out of him when Aziraphale leans his head against his shoulder with a contented sound. Crowley turns to press a kiss to the crown of his head, closing his eyes at the smell of him, calming and familiar. It feels so incredibly natural being close to him like this, like his very skin knows his touch and wants to seek it out.

He lets his head rest against Aziaphale’s, the two of them staying in that position for the remainder of the ride back to Crowley’s flat, Crowley letting his thumb graze along Aziraphale’s absently. He untangles their hands, let’s their fingertips touch lightly together before trailing his own down the length of Aziraphale’s fingers, across the plane of his palm, Aziraphale’s hand curling over his knuckles as he does. The backs of Crowley’s fingernails ghost across the thin skin of Aziraphale’s wrist and he trails his fingers over the back of his hand, feeling the slight ridges of bone and tendon under his skin. He grazes the ridges of Aziraphale’s knuckles before letting their fingers lace loosely together again.

He wants to take the time to map every last corner of Aziraphale’s skin with his hands like this, wants Aziraphale to do the same to him. He needs to learn every part of him. And when they get back to his flat, there’s only a few seconds of awkward hesitation before someone moves—or maybe they both move—and then they’re kissing. Crowley pours two thousand years of emotion into that kiss, hopes Aziraphale can feel it in the desperate way he presses their lips together and pulls him closer until their bodies are flush.

Though he knows they’ll have to figure something out when Heaven and Hell come looking for them, for now, the world isn’t ending, Aziraphale is at his side where he belongs. For now, they have time.


End file.
